NEW YORK — The loudest laughter heard on Broadway in many years is coming from the stage of the Golden Theatre, where a comedy with the improbable name of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is playing to ever-growing delighted audiences.

The scene that causes the most hilarity is a rant that is desperately serious, at least to the character who’s speaking it (which is just how it ought to be, but seldom is).

David Hyde Pierce, no longer the dapper Niles from Frasier, but a rumpled, woebegone, aging boomer called Vanya, is lashing out at a particularly shallow young person about the loss of collective memory in our society.

With a passion worthy of grand opera and a swooping command of emotion to rival any diva, he recalls the long-gone days when all of North America sat around their televisions and watched the same programs at the same time, resulting in a kind of generational bonding he finds sadly vanished.

From The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet to The Ed Sullivan Show, he sings their praises while offering a dirge for their demise. The more desperately passionate he becomes, the more the audience roars with glee, not because they’re mocking him, but because they identify with what he’s saying.

It’s a wonderful synthesis of author Christopher Durang’s oh-so-smart writing and Pierce’s virtuoso performance, and it stands as the high point of the seven plays I saw on my recent visit to the Big Apple.

That’s not to imply the entire play is built on one monologue, because you’ll find yourself breaking into uncontrollable laughter more times than you can count. Kristine Nielsen’s Sonia does a devastating takeoff of Maggie Smith’s Oscar-winning turn from California Suite, Sigourney Weaver’s Masha has a hissy fit when her Snow White costume for a party is upstaged by everyone else, and Bill Magnussen’s Spike proves that perfectly sculpted abs and superb comic timing aren’t mutually exclusive.

The names of the title characters (Spike excepted) are, of course, all Chekhovian and Durang is indeed saying that these lost modern souls are our equivalent of their Russian counterparts. Just like in any Chekhov play, there are those who leave home and prosper, while the others remain and whither.

In this case, Vanya and Sonia are brother and sister who gave up their lives to take care of their aging parents while Masha went on to fame and fortune as a film star.

The division of life goals allows for some pointed comedy as we ultimately question who indeed has wasted their lives, the caretakers or the movie queen? But Durang’s touch is never really heavy, even though he goes in for some outrageous inventions, like a cleaning lady named Cassandra who lives up to her name and runs around prophesying gloom and doom, as well as a sweet young thing, named — in true Chekhovian fashion — Nina, who is so guileless, it surpasses understanding.

Shalita Grant and Genevieve Angelson are, respectively, wonderful in those roles, as is the deeply blond and totally clueless Spike of Magussen, but the show really belongs to the three older siblings.

Weaver we know has a wonderful gift for sardonic humour, and she has been acting in Durang’s plays since they were at Yale together, so her confident turn is no surprise.

Pierce has also appeared in Durang’s scripts since 1981, although he’s not associated with the author as closely. But no writer could ask for a better friend than Pierce is here, knowing just how to caress a line, or throw it away, or drive it home. He underplays so beautifully for 90 per cent of the evening that when he finally erupts volcanolike for his final tirade, it’s even more wonderful and startling.

Finally, Nielsen is so sublime in her role that one understands why the Tony nominating committee placed her on the Best Actress in a Play list, passing over a lot of stellar competition. She has a great flustered dignity, an awesome vulnerability and an uncanny knack of how to aim a comedy line. It’s a performance not to be missed.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a show that would certainly brighten up any stage in Toronto and whether Mirvish Productions, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, or even Tarragon picks it up, they’ll have a winner on their hands.

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